Arenal Lake and Volcano
- by crv.staff
- 28.09.09
- 10:42 AM UTC
- Filed in Costa Rica
Source: Examiner
Just north of San Jose, Costa Rica, is a beautiful lake and the most active volcano in Costa Rica. This has become one of the top tourist spots in Costa Rica. Easy to understand why after one visit.
The old town of Arenal sits at the bottom of the 200 ft. deep lake. In 1979, I.C.E., the Costa Rican electric company, formed a dam and flooded the town forming a 33sq. mile lake. The people were moved and a new town was built which is known as Nuevo Arenal, New Arenal.
The lake offers excellant bass fishing from March thru July; boat tours; kayaking, and on the western side of the lake the winds are so strong from November thru April, wind surfing has become very popular.
On the eastern side of the lake is Volcano Arenal, this volcano laid dormant for 400 years until 1968. The eruption lasted 3 days, killing 87 people and burying 3 small vilages. Today, you can hear the rumbles and at night, if it is clear, you can see lava flowing down the sides. It is truly an amazing sight. The geothermal heat from the volcano warms the ground water and creates natural hot springs which have become a big tourist attraction. Some of the resorts have built around hot springs.
There are many hotels and resorts in this area. If your hotel does not have hot springs on the grounds, they will offer tours to the springs along with other activities such as a canopy tour( going from one tree stand to another on a wire line), horseback riding, mountain biking or hiking and hanging bridges. The temperatures are a bit cooler here as it is part of a rain forest so there are always beautiful flowers growing wild and the hotels all have spectacular landscaping. The humming birds are the biggest I’ve ever seen, and the birds are extremely colorful, including toucans and wild parrots. At night and early morning you can hear the howler monkeys in the hillside. Driving along the road around the lake you might get to see a group of Coati, you can stop and feed them fruit saved from your breakfast buffet.
A visit to Arenal should certainly be included in your trip to Costa Rica, try to stay more than one day.
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Hi,
Thanks for this post – one comment, however, is that you should most certainly not feed your fruit to coatimundis. Wild animals should remain just that, wild, and it is essential to their ability to survive that they do not become accustomed to human interaction and should most certainly not associate people with food. This is true of not only coatimundis (known locally as pizotes), but of all wildlife, and all animals should be enjoyed from afar no matter how tempting it may be to try and interact with them.
Cheers,
Alec
So very excited for our trip to Costa Rica in December and a visit to Arenal is number one on our list!
we are going in Nov and we are looking forward to seeing Arenel- lake & volcano.